A Journey of Discovery

Monthly Archives: May 2016

These pictures popped up yesterday in my Facebook memories from a few years ago. We had a major hail storm that did several thousands of dollars damage to our house and decimated my yard plants. I had to shovel the hail to find the power cord for the pool cover pump.

The snow boots with capris look was one I had not worn before – or since. In fact, since moving to Savannah I have not even seen those snow boots. It doesn’t snow here.

Or hail.

Although we are nestled in the armpit of the East coast, hurricanes are not out of the realm of possibility. I should probably get boots for my hurricane kit, just in case.

I have this thing with music. It’s my ‘go to’ when I’m in a mood. My mood steers the music I listen to, sing to, worship to, cry to, scream to. Maybe it should be the other way around, and I guess sometimes it is, but not today.

On days when there is a roar in my gut clawing to get out, the only way to loose it from its cage is to climb inside with it. Hard rock music is the key in the lock.

Most of the time, I don’t even hear the lyrics. The throaty, guttural, roaring voice fills the cage, but there are no words, because words just aren’t sufficient enough to calm the beast like the pounding rhythm can.

This is remnants of my formative years, I know; the effects of growing up with 80s heavy metal blaring from the car stereos of everyone I knew. But it’s a part of me that I never wish to change.

On angry days like today, Disturbed’s Warrior is the battle cry of this angry mama. I am one with the Warrior inside. Yes, I am angry today, but the anger will not win. For now, that beast has been let out and slain.

Tonight I attended a College Readiness meeting with my Junior-to-be kid. This is Kid #3, meaning this is the third of these meetings I’ve attended, and it was exactly the same as the previous two, so I probably could have skipped it. It was mostly all been-there-done-that type stuff except for one HUGE difference: the crowd of parents.

It slowly dawned on me during the meeting that I am no longer the “young” mom of the group. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of gray hairs and reading glasses in the group. My own reading glasses stayed quietly tucked inside my purse, even though there was print so tiny – and I mean T I N Y – I know I couldn’t have read it even with my glasses on. But, even without my glasses on, it was painfully clear that I fall somewhere in the lower middle of the youngest moms.

Thankfully, next year’s college readiness meeting with my youngest will be the last time I must endure this glaring realization.

You are in the home stretch now. You’ve trudged on for months to land at this moment. You’ve read novels you didn’t understand, written essays you couldn’t repeat today, copied and studied vocab words that you know you’ll never use in conversation. You’ve worked Algebra problems, Geometry problems, Physics and Chemistry problems until your erasers were gone. You’ve spent hours on the computer pretending to do research. And, because you have the privilege of attending a private Christian school, you’ve memorized Scripture verses and studied the Old Testament, the life of Jesus, and everything in between, even when you weren’t sure what you were learning was true or good or held any promise.

Your Dad and I have yelled and threatened, cajoled and coaxed, begged and blackmailed until we’re blue in the face and I’m pretty sure we each have sprouted new gray hairs this year. We’ve spent sleepless nights worrying about your futures, awoken early to plead on our knees for God to just help us get through this school year. We’ve conferenced with teachers, emailed the counselor, and tracked your progress way more than we should have needed to. We’ve all but emptied our savings account to give you the best possible education so you’ll be intelligent, productive members of the society you’ll one day enter in, with little to no show of appreciation from you. I suppose we didn’t appreciate all our parents did for us either.

Next week, after exams are over, we’ll move on into summer – whatever that means. We’ll move forward with whatever we need to do next. We’ll do it because that’s what we’ve been called to do. We’ll do it because, as imperfect as we are in the doing, we love you.

Work hard, kids, and learn to persevere. Finish well. Because, trust us, there will be harder things to come in your life and there just isn’t a better time to figure out how to push through than now.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness], stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us, 2 [looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].” Hebrews 12:1-2 AMP